Page 40 of Enzo
Rio side-eyed me. “You know them?”
“I was in,” I admitted, and anger flared hot in my gut.
“I know,” Rio said, quiet, his gaze fixed on me. I didn’t ask how he knew—Rio had contacts from his days as a fighter, and he was still part of that circle.
“Mateo Delgardo runs the crew now,” I murmured.
I knew the Delgardo family, and not in a six-degrees-of-separation way. Mateo was my childhood best friend, the only son of SC’s head, Sonny Delgardo. There were summers as kids when we’d shared ice pops and stole cigarettes from my older brother, and as soon as he’d turned thirteen and the SC stole him from anything like innocence, there were years where we didn’t speak at all, not without an undertone of threats and a knife in his hand.
Seeing this mark here—this slanted cross not ten steps from Redcars—felt like a betrayal wrapped in gasoline. Delgardo senior was dead now, Mateo stepping up to take over, and I’d made that deal for five years of my life for the SC to stay well away from me. I’d done time for Mateo, and he owed me.
“You wanna expand on your connection now?”
“I don’t have one. I was in, now I’m not, that’s all you need to know.”
Rio crossed his arms, his expression unreadable. There was a tightness in his jaw, the kind he got when he was angry but trying not to show it, but his gaze was fixed on the graffiti as though it had insulted him, and it wasn’t focused on me not telling him anything. “Thought you should see it before Logan does. You know he’s worried about Cass.” We exchanged glances—we were worried about Logan’s daughter—she was family.
“Keep this between ourselves for now, okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll cover, but?—”
“We need to get extra cameras pointing this way.”
“Sure, but you think this is connected to Robbie? Why is Vinnie doing this shit?”
“That’s a stretch it has anything to do with Robbie. SC is mid-level—drugs, guns.” They strutted around like some knock-off Mafia, all swagger and intimidation, but the SC kept their focus narrow. Controlled. Confined to the shit they could sell or threaten. But prisoners? Human trafficking? That was a different game. That wasn’t their remit. Not before. If they were branching out into that kind of depravity now, either Mateo—the boy I knew—had rotted from his core, Vinnie was working off-plan, or new players were calling the shots. None of those options sat well with me.
“You think Vinnie’s back to settle something with you?”
Rio laughed, sharp and humorless. “Vinnie has nothing to settle. It was me in the cage, fighting. Him behind the curtain, counting cash, playing big man. I broke my hands for him. I kept my mouth shut and I owe him nothing.” Rio’s jaw tightened. “But, I see his face around here, and I feel it in my bones—he’s after something and it’s not me or cars. He’s claimed by a gang marking up our wall space, carrying that SC mark like it’s nothing, and fuck, he stared at Robbie like he knew something, watching, looking for weaknesses. I know him Enzo, and I don’t like his face around here. He’s always been small time y’know, only this time, he’s got backup. This Mateo you know might run the SC, but Vinnie’s doing his errands. Lighting fires. And if he knows anything about Robbie, if he has any idea…”
“You think he knows who Robbie is?” My world shifted, and Rio’s silence was answer enough.
“I don’t know, but I’m gonna find him and then I’ll find out,” Rio snarled.
“I need to go higher.”
“You’re going to front the SC.”
For my family? For my home? For Robbie? “Yeah.”
“I’ll get Jamie to stay over, and fuck, that journalist, Gray… we need to keep this away from him. And Logan, away from him and Cassidy.”
“She’s visiting today.”
“I know. No Tudor. No, Robbie. Tonight.”
“Just us,” Rio said, and we nodded.
Just us.
If it all went to hell, it’d be on us to bleed first.
To keep Robbie safe.
FIFTEEN
Robbie
